I wasn't tweaking anything. I just came home from work and noticed it was shut down (it's usually running). I booted it and it gave me the "read error" message and has been doing that ever since. I think Mr. Zeeedler is right because we frequently check for viruses and defrag.
My brother-in-law guesses the hard drive is defective. I plan to try an OS reload. If this doesn't work, I guess he's right.
My Ghost image is on CDs. I think I've misplaced my 3.5-inch boot disk.
There was no non-boot disk in the drive when the problem occurred.
Thanks anyways, fellas. Anyone with suggestions please let me know.
So far, I've found that my main hard drive malfunctioned. I'm not sure whether or not a virus caused this, but I installed another hard drive and borrowed a Ghost boot disk from my brother-in-law (mine didn't work for some reason). From there I was able to use the Ghost image I saved to CD and so far I'm back to normal. I'm in the process of scanning my drives for viruses.